HARDBALL DOUBLES EXHIBITION

The WSF Management Committee (ManCom) scheduled for Canada in early September gave those ManCom members who had not been exposed to Hardball the opportunity to watch some action. While I had done so several times, seeing matches on adjacent courts while squash events were taking place in US clubs, not everybody had done so.

As a Brit, seeing the cricket pitch when we arrived at the Toronto club of that name was reassuring. Now, that is a real sport! But we were here for an inside game, albeit one with a pretty big playing area too. We were ushered in and given a real treat. No, not the sport but an extensive supply of beer vouchers - something much less of a system elsewhere, mores' the pity.

Into the seats, and warming up in front of us were four greats. Well, maybe only three as Shahier Razik had let on to me in Germany a couple of weeks earlier that he was inexperienced, but as a splendid softballer it would hardly show. Knowing Willie Hosey, Jonathon Power and Gary Waite while they played the squidgy ball game I was intrigued to watch them as top exponents of the North American game……and to ensure a WSF viewing to support the tub thumping that Gary had done on its behalf.

WSF Exhinition in Toronto

The board of the World Squash Federation was treated to a top level hardball doubles exhibition at the Toronto Cricket Club.  We hope the WSF loved it and will include us in future talks about doubles internationally.  

All the games from Hardball Doubles Exhibition on September 9^th 2011 for the WSF Showcase are now available for viewing.

Squash Canada WSF Showcase - Game 1 from SportZtime on Vimeo.

The Maine/Maryland at Meadow Mill (M4) Doubles Tournament

The first major doubles tournament of the 2011-2012 season offers an opportunity to win a state championship (for future recognition), to contribute to a worthy urban squash program and help keep hope alive for returning doubles to the great state of Maine.

The Maine/Maryland at Meadow Mill (M4) Doubles tournament will be held September 30 – October 2 at Meadow Mill Athletic Club in Baltimore, and other clubs as necessary. Seven draws are scheduled: an Open, a Women’s draw, a B, and under 30, and three age draws, 50s, 60s and 70s.

It will be the second time this event has been held.  A 2009 tournament drew nearly 50 players from Maine to Maryland, Montreal to Miami and a few cities in between. This year’s event already has that many players committed - from California to Canada, Wilmington, Philadelphia and New York - and promises to be an even more exciting tournament, with limited prize money available in the Open draw.

The tournament also will seek to raise funds for SquashWise, Baltimore’s urban squash and education program.  The after-school program for middle school students is based at Meadow Mill, a popular squash and athletic club operated by Nancy Cushman, and host to the Women’s Howe Cup Team Championships and the National Skills Level Championship for 2011/2012. 

The Maine/Maryland tournament (or M4) was conceived by Fred Hill, a retired State Department official and avid doubles player, and several friends in Baltimore with whom he played doubles at Meadow Mill for many years, notably Paul Harris and Hugh Anderson.  Hill moved to Maine in 2006 to write a book on his family’s 19-century shipyard, and bought a house just 15 minutes from Bowdoin College, which had the only hardball doubles court in the state.